The work of the Theory and Semantics Group is centred round mathematical models
of a variety of languages and logics. These models are intended to be
used as a tool
for clarifying programming concepts, as a basis for specification and
verification, and
for analysing the complexity of computations. We use techniques such
as structural
operational semantics, domain theory, category theory, finite model
theory and linear
logic. Work is in progress on the underlying mathematical structures
of these, and on
their application to the study of higher order typed programming
languages, to object-based
languages, to foundational languages for concurrent, distributed and mobile
computation, to hardware description languages, and to security
problems. We work
in close collaboration with the Automated Reasoning
Group, Programming Research and
Systems Research Groups.

Research Themes

Mathematical models (Fiore, Pitts, Winskel) for

functional computation;

concurrent computation; and

combinatorics and the analysis of algorithms

based on

category theory; and

domain theory.

Foundations of distributed computation, (Sewell, Winskel) including

the design, semantics and implementation of distributed programming languages;

behavioural modelling for network protocols; and

security issues

Finite model theory (Dawar) and its connection to

the study of computational complexity;

the theory of databases;

the complexity of games; and

the expressive power of logical formalisms

Mechanized meta-theory(Pitts, Sewell)

Machine-assisted support for operational semantics of programming languages